Emergency crews called back to collapsing building

A crew shores up a storage section Monday of a collapsed roof at Bayside Bargains, 14 S. Madison Ave., Sturgeon Bay. The building began to fall on Jan. 4, and further deterioration occurred Monday.(Photo: Tina M. Gohr/Door County Advocate)Buy Photo

A Sturgeon Bay business has closed for the second time in more than a week because its roof continues to collapse.

A Sturgeon Bay Police officer discovered that the second-floor storage area of the Bayside Bargains building, 14 S. Madison St., had collapsed Jan. 4. Some of the debris from the building landed on the roof of neighboring Northern Territory, Country Cabin and Beachside Cottage, 20 S. Madison Ave.

Door County Land Records lists the building that houses Bayside Bargains as being owned by Vegetable Truck LLC, Atlas Management in Milwaukee. The Northern Territory building is co-owned by Kay and Karl Seitz.

Assistant Sturgeon Bay Fire Chief Tim Dietman said the new call came in at about 11:10 a.m. Monday as a “building collapse.”

“We were able to get into an attic area of the Bayside Bargains store, and we saw a lot of trusses and beams were cracked,” Dietman said.

The area that collapsed was a loft area, and the collapsed roof put pressure on the outer walls and caused further deterioration.

He described it as the roof “settling.”

“Absolutely nothing foul expected or suspected,” Dietman said of what may have caused the collapse. The cause is still unknown.

Both Bayside Bargains and Northern Territory were told to close until an engineer can come out and determine whether the buildings are safe. As an added precaution the fire department set up barricades and taped off the sidewalks and alley around the building. The utilities to both buildings have been cut off.

Scott Strang, who works for Peter Moede, a co-owner of the Bayside Bargains building, was on hand Monday afternoon to oversee the partial demolition of the areas of the affected by the collapse.

“So we’re just making sure that we remove the safety hazards. We don’t want any more walls dropping or any more pieces of roof falling,” he said.

Strang has no idea what caused the collapse.

“Right now we are just mainly concerned about making a safe environment,” he said.

Kay Seitz was in her building when the collapsed area started settling Monday afternoon.

“All of a sudden we heard this huge noise. I mean a bad noise, and it just kept rumbling,” she said.

Kay Seitz immediately evacuated the building and called her insurance company. They directed her to call the fire department.

She is certain a new roof will have to be put on the building.

Mike Pichette, owner of Bayside Bargains, is unsure about the future of his business at the Madison Street location.

“Honestly, I don’t know what we are going to do,” Pichette said. If they can get back into the building, they will stay. It all hinges on the verdict of the engineers.